Duckworth Lewis - The Method And The Men Behind It

Thursday 7 April 2011

Duckworth Lewis - The Method And The Men Behind It

Name cricket's most famous partnership these days and you can forget Hobbs and Sutcliffe, Statham and Trueman, or Lillee and Thomson. Instead you have to turn to Duckworth and Lewis, two pioneering mathematicians who changed the face of one-day cricket with a solution to an age-old dilemma: how to decide the outcome of matches affected by bad weather.

Today, almost every rain-affected one-day match throughout the world is decided by the Duckworth-Lewis Method, and the duo, who were awarded MBE’s for services to cricket in 2010, have become so well-known, they have a racehorse named after them, and even a pop group, The Duckworth-Lewis Method.

But their groundbreaking formula had uncertain beginnings and the rollercoaster story of how they fought for acceptance by the cricket authorities, how they won over hostile critics and fans, and how they found themselves thrust into the media spotlight in a storm of controversy, is told here for the first time.

The book sets out why the method was needed and how it works; the mistakes they made along the way and how they corrected them; and the way they developed it to take account of changes in the game. But most of all, it tells the compelling human story behind one of most important recent developments in the sport.

AUTHOR DETAILS

FRANK DUCKWORTH was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire. He gained a BSc (Hons) in Physics and then a PhD inMetallurgy at Liverpool University and in 1965 he joined the Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories where he was engaged inproblem solving in the first generation of British nuclear power reactors. He is honorary editor of the Royal StatisticalSociety’s monthly magazine and he was awarded an MBE for his services to cricket in June 2010.

TONY LEWIS was educated at the University of Sheffield where he gained a First Class BSc, an MSc and a Diploma inEducation. He has lectured at universities around the world including Perth, Western Australia, Bristol and Oxford and hehas spent periods in industry applying mathematics and statistics to practical problems. He was awarded an MBE for hisservices to cricket in June 2010.